The Portuguese hacker involved in the “Football Leaks” revelations is also the whistle-blower behind the “Luanda Leaks” scandal embroiling the daughter of an ex-president, his lawyers said yesterday.
Rui Pinto has handed over “a hard-drive containing all data related to the recent revelations concerning Ms. Isabel Dos Santos’ fortune, her family’s and all the actors that might be involved in the fraudulent operations committed at the expense of the Angolan State,” a statement from his lawyers said.
The tycoon daughter of former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos has vowed to fight corruption allegations which have stretched across Angola’s state oil and diamond industries and banks.
Photo: AFP
Dos Santos has been accused of financial crimes during her tenure at Sonangol, Angola’s state-owned oil giant, which she headed during her father’s rule.
Pinto had forwarded the hard-drive to the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, his lawyers said.
Pinto had “sought to help understanding complex operations conducted with the complicity of banks and jurists which not only impoverish the people and the State of Angola, but may have seriously damaged Portugal’s general interest,” the statement said.
A Portuguese court decided on Jan. 17 to go ahead with the trial of Pinto, Teixeira da Mota said after a hearing in Lisbon, noting the number of offenses he has been charged with has been reduced to 90 from 147.
Pinto was extradited from Hungary in March last year for allegedly attempting to blackmail Doyen Sports, an investment fund, asking for between 500,000 and 1 million euros (US$551,000 to US$1.1 million) in return for not publishing documents he had obtained illegally from the computer systems of Doyen and of Sporting Lisbon. His lawyers claim that he had abandoned his blackmail attempt on his own initiative.
They say Pinto is a “very important European whistle-blower.”
The Football Leaks revelations allowed prosecutors in several countries, including Britain and France, to investigate possible wrongdoing in soccer.
Angolans call Isabel dos Santos “the princess,” and she is Africa’s richest woman, according to Forbes, which estimates her assets at US$2.1 billion.
Hundreds of companies, many based in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands, are alleged to have helped Dos Santos accrue her fortune.
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
RSS